Bishop Kemper School for Ministry
Connect with us
  • Home
  • Register for Courses
  • 2025 Student Retreats
    • Register for Retreat - First Year Students
    • Register for Retreat - All Other Students
  • 2025-26 Course Schedule
    • August 2025 courses
    • September 2025 courses
    • October 2025 courses
    • November 2025 courses
    • December 2025 courses
    • January 2026 courses
    • February 2026 courses
    • March 2026 courses
    • April 2026 courses
    • May 2026 courses
  • Programs of Study
    • Presbyteral Studies
    • Diaconal Studies
    • Anglican Studies
    • Parish Ministry Associate Program
    • Lay Catechist Certificate
    • Lay Evangelist Certificate
    • Lay Preacher Certificate
    • Pastoral Leader Certificate
  • Student Resources
    • 2025-26 Academic Calendar
    • Focus Weekends >
      • Focus Weekend Schedule
      • Find the Campus
    • Core Values
    • Policies and Procedures
    • Liturgical Customary
    • Anti Racism Covenant
    • Library Resources >
      • BKSM Grace Cathedral Joint Library Project
    • MDiv Opportunities
  • Tuition and Scholarships
    • Scholarship Application
  • About BKSM
    • BKSM Staff
    • Board of Directors
    • Sponsoring Dioceses
    • ELCA Partnership
    • Who Is Bishop Kemper?
  • BKSM Apparel Shop
  • Donate
  • Contact Us
  • Biblical Greek Course
  • Biblical Hebrew Course

BKSM's Namesake

The Bishop Kemper School for Ministry was founded in 2013 as a joint legal venture of the Dioceses of Kansas, Nebraska, West Missouri and Western Kansas. It is entirely fitting that the seminary was named after Bishop Jackson Kemper, given his profound influence on the Episcopal Church in this region and his support of local formation for ministry.  We thank Melodie Woermann, director of communications for the Diocese of Kansas, for writing this informative biography

About Bishop Jackson Kemper

Picture
Jackson Kemper was born in 1789 in upstate New York. His father served under General George Washington in the Continental Army, and his mother was from well-known Dutch families. He was baptized at Trinity Church, Wall Street.

He was class valedictorian at Columbia College and then studied theology under Bishop Benjamin Moore and the Rev. John Henry Hobart. He was ordained a deacon at age 21 in 1812 and priest two years later, by Bishop William White of Pennsylvania. He was sent on missionary tours of western Pennsylvania, Virginia and eastern Ohio, which was the start of his illustrious ministry as a missionary.

In the early 1800s, the Episcopal Church was beginning to consider its responsibilities for mission in the newly developing, and expanding, United States. In 1820 the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society was constituted by the Episcopal Church. Jackson Kemper was one of the original patrons of the society and traveled widely to visit and evaluate missionary efforts.

In 1835 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church decided to appoint bishops to direct the Church's future missionary work in the expanding west. Kemper was elected unanimously as the first missionary bishop in the Episcopal Church, with responsibility for what now are the states of Indiana and Missouri. His jurisdiction eventually included what are now the states of Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

His immediate concern was “inventing” a new model of episcopacy, one that had never been practiced by an Anglican bishop anywhere before. There were few, if any, precedents on which to depend or look to for guidance.

Bishop Kemper’s life as a missionary is almost inconceivable to us today. He traveled from the shores of Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico by steamboat, on horseback, by stagecoach, and often on foot. He slept in the open or on the hard floor of a remote hunter’s cabin or in an Indian wigwam. In one instance, he traveled for four days in order to confirm a young person in northern Wisconsin.


Bishop Kemper traveled by water whenever possible, but he often had to resort to stagecoach or horseback. He carried all his possessions in his saddlebags: vestments, bible, prayer book, chalice and paten, and personal items.

 
He organized six dioceses, consecrated nearly a hundred churches, ordained more than two hundred priests and deacons, and confirmed almost 10,000 souls. He lobbied, unsuccessfully, in the East for a German translation of the Book of Common Prayer to use in his ministry to German immigrants.

Pleased with the establishment of a Winnebago mission at Oneida in Wisconsin, he pressed for further work with Native Americans. Bishop Kemper later confirmed five people of the Ojibwe nation, among them John Anmegahbowk Johnson, now commemorated on June 12 in the Episcopal Church's liturgical calendar as Enmegahbowh, the first Native American Episcopal priest.

He also founded Nashotah House, one of the Episcopal Church’s residential seminaries, in Wisconsin.

Picture
In 1847 he was elected to be first Bishop of the new Diocese of Wisconsin, but he declined. Later, in 1859, after Kemper had retired from missionary work, he was immediately elected for the second time to the Diocese of Wisconsin, and this time he accepted, remaining in that office until his death on May 24, 1870.

After his death, Bishop Talbot of Indiana wrote, “No bishop in the line of our American episcopate has succeeded in concentrating upon himself more entirely than he, the love and veneration of the Church.”

He is remembered in the calendar of the Episcopal Church on May 24. This is the prayer for that day:

Lord God, in your providence Jackson Kemper
was chosen first missionary bishop in this land,
and by his arduous labor and travel congregations were established
in scattered settlements of the West:
Grant that the Church may always be faithful to its mission,
and have the vision, courage, and perseverance
to make known to all people the
Good News of Jesus Christ; who with you
and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Address:
Bishop Kemper School for Ministry
701 SW 8th Avenue
Topeka, KS 66603

Address for Tuition Payments/Donations:
The Rev, Fran Wheeler
14519 S. Kaw Dr.

Olathe, KS 66062


The Bishop Kemper School for Ministry is a collaborative venture of the Episcopal Dioceses of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, West Missouri, Nebraska and Western Kansas.
BKSM also partners with the Central States Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
BKSM offers classes and programs to educate people for church leadership in both lay and ordained vocations.